Sleepy ... so, so sleepy ... Typing the long, long GOP press release about Bush's new ad offensive that is their A1 article today ("Bush's Campaign Emphasizes Role of Leader in War"), Richard W. Stevenson and Adam Nagourney seem to have gotten a little woozy. Or maybe they were having trouble with carbon monoxide fumes. Or possibly they were distracted by a shiny object, maybe a flag lapel pin. They manage to keep focused long enough to offer a punning compliment to Dear Leader in the article's lead—"A year after ordering the invasion of Iraq, President Bush is moving the war to the forefront of his re-election effort with a weeklong barrage" of speeches, interviews and ads—but after that their focus seems to wander ...

I mean, what other explanation is there for crap like this?

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr. Bush showed a flash of how confrontational he planned to be on Mr. Kerry's foreign affairs record. With the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, at his side, Mr. Bush demanded that Mr. Kerry provide evidence to support his suggestion last week that foreign leaders want to see Mr. Bush defeated.

"If you're going to make an accusation in the course of a presidential campaign, you've got to back it up with facts," Mr. Bush told reporters on Tuesday.

Kerry's suggestion last week that foreign leaders want him to beat Bush. Statement of fact. And it's not until, oh let's count shall we, fourteen grafs later, well after the jump, that Stevenson and Nagourney wake up just long enough to remember that, ummm, it's really more factesque what Kerry said than it is strictly speaking factual:

Mr. Kerry did not respond to Mr. Bush's call that he explain his suggestion about other leaders rooting for his victory. Although on Monday, it emerged that the suggestion was misquoted and that Mr. Kerry had said "more" leaders, not "foreign" leaders, the comments came in response to remarks about travel abroad and the White House continued to press the issue.

Bob Somerby has the lowdown on the Kerry pseudo-quote and its hardening into campaign lore, so like similar not-quotes not-uttered by Al Gore in 2000. Consider this one more exhibit. And note in particular how Stevenson and Nagourney only address the actual, untidy truth of the matter in a passive-voiced dependent clause ("Although it emerged ..."), raising it solely in order to defend Dear Leader's prerogative: see, there was talk about foreigners in the air, so we know what Kerry really meant, so it's really close enough to being an actual quote for us to make allowances for when Dubya, etc., and now the fumes have got me.

And remark, again, on the amber waves of type separating Bush's attack from even the grudging, partial admission of semi-error that Stevenson and Nagourney will allow us. Fourteen motherfucking grafs.

It's been disheartening enough to watch the Times declare that they'll go to A1 with whatever oppo the RNC feels like handing them. Now it appears that the standard of fact, too, is left to GOP discretion: when it comes to criticism of John Kerry, at least, it's a fact if Bush says it, even when it ain't.

posted by michael  4:06:09 PM  
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President Obama. Just idle musing, from a Chicago progressive stunned to find that one of our own beat out both the machine candidate and one of those I-won-the-lottery-I'm-buying-me-a-Senate-seat millionaires—and with an absolute majority, no less. Has a nice ring to it though, doesn't it? If you've ever seen him speak, the thought will probably have crossed your mind, too. What's that thing—that thing we don't get to do on the left? Oh, yeah, win. So that's what that feels like.


posted by michael  3:26:38 PM  
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